St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-11-26
A NEW BLACK HILLS TOWN.
Bare Ranch Upon the Advent
of Railroad.
Special to the Globe.

Special to the Globe.
END-oF-THE-TRACK Oak, Nov 25.-
Unto the Black Hills another child is
born, another slab-sided son is given.
Whitewood is its name. | stood Mon
day i'm a corn field and witnessed the
municipal parturitiOn when the first
train on the extension of the Fremont.
Elkhorn IL Missouri Valley railroad
pulled into this, the present terminus of
the onward march OF the Northwestern
railroad system towards sunset. The
place is a forty-mile jump north
west from Rapid City, the ter
minus of the track for the past
sixteen months. Nearly $50
miles of the Black Hills branch is now
completed. Whitewood lies ten miles
north of DeadwCod. When a spur is
built into the latter place this will be
the point of divergence; it is the near
est station to Deadw0od at present. The
survey of the road has pushed on west
ward all summer; the engineer avant
cOuriers are now far out towards the
Big Horn mountains. They have run
the line hence through SpearfSl. Oak,
Sundance. WyO., thence out through
the petroleum fields of Cook county,
where the Great Northwestern OH COM
pany is Spudding away with fresh indi-
cations OF success, after two years of
vain iabbing towards the hidden jugular
vein of mother earth'S oleaginOuS circu-
lati0n; on out through the painless
ranges towards the great opal veins of
Wyoming, in which the Union Pacific
people have scratched a little at Rock
Springs, and so on towards the Pacific.
WhitewOOd, they say, is to be divis-
ion headquarters. The company is put
ting in five7stall round house to back
the opinion. A dozen ruStlers have
their pine ShantieS under way or fin
ished, and some of them are doing bust
ness in them. Between the private
builders and the army of railroad car
penterS and construction gangs there is
merry music and stirring scenes on this
quiet ranch of few days ago.
A CONSPICUOUS THING, BY ABSENCE,
is the liquor saloon. There is shanty
hanging on the ragged edge of the
town where an image of bloated Gam
brinuS gives assurance that that feature
of a thriving pioneer town is not EN-
tirely wanting. [ asked work
man where all the rest of
the whisky sellers were, and
he assured me that everybody was
too busy to patrOnize them yet. An
other explanation undoubtedly is that
the $500 license preliminary restraints
the enterprise of those who will doubt
less come to the fray when the town
gets out of its swaddling clothes and
able to stand stronger drink and charge
TO cOrreSpOnd-fOr two for quarter is
the minimum price for thimbleful of
the cup that cheers and inebriateS in
these parts. We shall not lack for the
rritd A1 cl, n ci,, mn II
That other feature of pioneer civiliZa-
tion-the newspapers already here.
Among the builders flashed, like an ORR
famine of war. the white mus
tache of Porter Warner, the pro-
prietor of the DeadwoOd Times,
as he superintendent the erection
of pine printing Office to be the home
of the pioneer paper of this more or
less Future-great. He solemnly Stipu-
lated that the move did not mean any
disposition TO hedge against anticipated
loss of business in DeadwOOd; but he
anticipated that some BANKED fool
would be sure to rush in there and start
a paper, so he meant to head them off
and hold the fort. His son will manage
the paper, and for the present it will be
printed at their well-equipped office in
Deadwood and issued here. 1t num-
berS the seventeenth in the list of pa
pers published in the Black HillS-an
unusual equipment for the population
even in the annals of that most over
done of business.
THE FIRST TRAIN INTO THE PLACE
consisted of regular passenger outfit,
adorned as to its hinder end by the
private car of the general manager. The
locomotive that heralded new era to
the Northern hills backed i'm as if civil
liZation had begun to progress crab
fashion. There was no welcoming dele
CATION, no speeches, no bands or ban
ners; not wild hurrah. nor any one to
say, ''Ain't we glad to get out of the
wilderness" A score or so of rancherS
and spectators stood ON the bank as
mute as so many Indians. The cayeuses
and farm horses showed the only en-
thuSiaSm that was manifested, and
their interest was to get away from the
strange monster. The carpenters did
not even knock off work to see the
memorable entrance. A railroad, more
OF less, is nothing to us out
here now. We expect to see a good
many of them in the next year or two,
and we are just habituating ourselves
to such events. thought the railroad
magnates were rather taken aback by
the cool reception, though. Some one
has whispered that there is another
similar surprise in store for them when
the day comes for the sale of town lots
in Whitewood. Even if it is to be
division terminus permanently, it is diff
ficult at this stage of population and
locus of business interests, to see what
is to make WhitewOOd a very thriving
town, Be il what it may, its prosperity